U 1277
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U 1277 ( previous / next - all submarines ) |
|
|---|---|
| Type : | VII C / 41 |
| Field Post Number : | M 07 218 |
| Shipyard: |
Vegesacker shipyard Bremen-Vegesack |
| Construction contract: | June 13, 1942 |
| Keel laying: | June 12, 1940 |
| Launch: | March 18, 1944 |
| Commissioning: | May 3, 1944 |
| Commanders: |
May 3, 1944 - June 3, 1945 |
| Calls: | 1 patrol |
| Sinkings: |
no |
| Whereabouts: | on June 3, 1945, near Porto , Portugal , self- sunk (47 prisoners of war, no dead) |
U 1277 was a German submarine in World War II from Type VII C of the former Navy . It could not sink or damage ships on its only venture in the Atlantic. After the end of the war, on June 3, 1945, it was self- sunk by its crew off the Portuguese coast . All 47 men of the crew including the commander Peter-Ehrenreich Stever were handed over by the Portuguese to the British and had to remain in Great Britain as a prisoner of war until 1947 .
history
The boat was built at the Vegesack shipyard in Bremen-Vegesack , put into service on May 3, 1944 and handed over to Lieutenant Peter-Ehrenreich Stever on May 18 of the same year.
The submarine was part of the 8th U-Flotilla as a test boat and as a training boat . In February 1945 it was transferred to the 11th U-Flotilla due to the small number of combat-ready submarines still available . After it was fully equipped for war missions in Bergen , Norway , it headed past Iceland to the entrance of the English Channel in order to position itself there.
The crew consisted of 45 men, four officers - commander, first watch officer , second watch officer and chief engineer (machine officer) - four non-commissioned officers and 37 crew ranks . The age of the crew members of U 1277 was between 18 and 25 years.
Self-immersion
U 1277 left the base in Stavanger on April 21st. Lieutenant Stevers was assigned to patrol the English Channel . On the morning of June 3, 1945, the submarine was scuttled off Cabo do Mundo near Porto on the orders of Commander Peter-Ehrenreich Stever (position: 41 ° 13 ′ N , 8 ° 43 ′ W ). All crew members managed to get to the Portuguese coast with their lifeboats. The 47-man crew was first interned in Lisbon and then brought via Gibraltar to England into British captivity , where they remained until 1947. Stever was sentenced as a war criminal to 7 years imprisonment by a British military court on July 5, 1946 for sinking U 1277 as a violation of the surrender provisions, which was later reduced to 5 years. However, he was released after just two years.
The wreck today
In October 1973, recreational divers and fishermen, originally trying to find out the reason for the loss of numerous fishing nets, came across a wreck that turned out to be the German submarine that was sunk off the coast at the end of World War II. The remains have been lying on sandy ground at a depth of 30 meters since 1945. The wreck has an incline of 45 degrees to port and the stern has sunk into the seabed or covered by sediment .
literature
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. Preface by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rohwer, Member of the Presidium of the International Commission on Military History. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1996, p. 234. ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: Submarine construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 1997, pp. 152, 220. ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .
- Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 4: The German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2008, pp. 359, 372. ISBN 978-3-8132-0514-5 .
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maas: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 3: Submarines, auxiliary cruisers, mine ships, net layers. Bernhard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7637-4802-4 .
- Clay Blair : The Submarine War - The Hunted 1942–1945 . Heyne Verlag, 1999. pp. 781, 783. ISBN 3-4531-6059-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Clay Blair : The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 . P. 783
- ↑ Axel Niestlé: German U-Boat losses during World War II Details of Destruction , Frontline Books, Barnsley 2014, ISBN 978-1-84832-210-3 , p. 110
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 4: German submarine losses from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler and Son, Hamburg a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0514-2 . P. 372
- ↑ Chris Madsen: The Royal Navy and German Naval Disarmament, 1942-1947. Frank Cass, London 1998. pp. 180f.
Map with all coordinates: